Much of that is pet projects or incentives for installing additional pollution control equipment not necessarily required by other laws. The remainder is primarily loan guarantees with a few small tax breaks here and there. A few billion over many years isn't *censored* compared to what other industries and "green" power gets. Coal power in the US is competitive with few or no subsidies. Renewables aren't even in the same ballpark.

Dan, once again it takes an act of Congress. These shutdowns have been coming for decades, all these Corp.s were riding the gravy train. The Congress are the ones that you should be putting the blame on. All I say is put the blame where it belongs. http://books.google.com/books?id=mdE7EE ... &q&f=false

So .... who is responsible for the EPA becoming so big & bloated that not even the President can dictate their agenda?

It's pretty clear in recent years that the EPA does whatever the hell it wants to do .... much like our current president.

The economy is smoked .... and our government still listens to eco-weinie rhetoric, & denies permits to drill domestically.

Fossil fuels are the cheapest way to get the energy this country needs. Why not USE the damn fuel, & THEN design something better ... instead of condemning the very fuels that built this - the best nation on the planet???

samhill wrote:Dan, is that a self portrait perhaps? Save yourself some time looking up stuff like that & prove me wrong. Should be no problem what so ever for all knowing conservatives.

Ohhh, pleeeze, that's so funny.

Sam, you should be a politician. you never answer a question, and now you answered me with a link to a fifty page jumble of "facts". I'm not gonna sift through that, just to easily prove you wrong, only to see you deflect, deny, obfuscate, reiterate past claims of the validity of the Marxist Regime.Oh, and you are like a battered woman, you just don't listen.Prove you wrong? Quite a few people here have been doing that for dozens and dozens of posts. I told you before, nobody can prove anything on the internet.

Suppose Bush spent 8 years hacking into the Washington Monument with a sledgehammer. On the day he left office it's starting to fall like a redwood tree. It falls on the ground and blocks traffic just as the Bamster gets in. So instead of getting to work to clear the rubble, Obimbo just blames Bush for three years.

Smitty, here are your drilling permits. Dan, what was your question that I didn't answer, do I hate the rich or ultra rich or mega businesses. I've given you that answer several times, I dislike anyone that is getting something for nothing when they don't need. Either being too lazy to work or making billions to me is still collecting welfare, just on opposite ends of the spectrum. Get rid of generational welfare, subsidies (both the same IMO) tax loopholes & most deductions, let everyone pay tax with no free rides (except those truly unable) & I'll be OK with either party in there. Get rid of Corp.s buying politicians, fraud, special deals & all that other political crap the world will be a much better place.

Ok man. I bust your chops because you're the only liberal I can actually communicate with on some level. I think you're left of center and I'm right of center, so we're not always that far apart. I agree with most of your statement. I'm doing a lot of thinking about corporations, yeah, there's a lot of heartless evil greed there. But making billions is not a problem to me, I don't have a chip on my shoulder against the rich; again, they provide jobs and goods and prosperity. If I can't get you to vote for anybody but the Marxist idealogue NWO puppet potus then it's all just meaningless.As a compliment to you, you persevere! And you have gotten better at putting your points across for sure.

I heard Halliburton is generating 11,000 domestic jobs, while GE continues to sell us out to China....

News flash Dan, you can read about those jobs, taxes paid, where their headquarters are & how they even screw over their U.S. workforce. It was a pretty decent Co. until the late 80s then for some strange reason they really turned around, must not be an patriotism at all in their upper management. http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=15

Franco, then explain to me why closing tax loopholes would cause more Gov. corruption, I thought those loopholes were part of the Gov. corruption. Are you implying that if you can afford to buy enough politicians to be able to have a loophole put in for your benefit then that is not corruption? Why is welfare on the low end of the scale be bad but on the upper end good? Personally I don't want a dime of my tax dollar going to a slug that's too lazy to work or a billionaire that feels it's beneath them to pay tax. It wouldn't surprise me if some pay more avoiding tax than what the tax would be, for some it's not so much the money as it is the fact that they can beat the Gov..

samhill wrote:Franco, then explain to me why closing tax loopholes would cause more Gov. corruption, I thought those loopholes were part of the Gov. corruption. Are you implying that if you can afford to buy enough politicians to be able to have a loophole put in for your benefit then that is not corruption? Why is welfare on the low end of the scale be bad but on the upper end good? Personally I don't want a dime of my tax dollar going to a slug that's too lazy to work or a billionaire that feels it's beneath them to pay tax. It wouldn't surprise me if some pay more avoiding tax than what the tax would be, for some it's not so much the money as it is the fact that they can beat the Gov..

I can agree with most of this.

My point is that when government sticks its foot into the market it does so with enormous costs and bureaucracies that hinder the market far more than any private corporation can do no matter how corrupt. I am all for a free market and so oppose special tax breaks, government unions, and the enforcement of regulations that hinder that market. I am for regulations that set up a level playing field and discourage speculation such as when the government actually encouraged banks to grant knowingly bad loans with government guarantees. Banks today borrow money from the Fed at no interest and then lend it back to the Fed at 2 or 3 percent interest.

Interference with the market to attain social goals by liberal politicians is what is responsible for the current mess and the deeper we go the more the government is interfering until market forces ultimately cause a collapse that will be far worse than if the market were free to correct itself.

Only trouble I have with the point that you are trying to make is that it's all one sided. Lets face it any of the social goals that you speak of could have easily been fixed in the 4 years that Bush had a majority in both houses & then 2 years of one house being even, & to be fair there have been plenty of times in history when one or the other party could have done the same. What I'm saying is that it isn't one sided & it didn't just happen.